Posts Tagged ‘dad’

So. Father’s Day.

It’s cool being a father. My boys are amazingly smart and funny and surprising and wonderful. They keep me sane even when they’re driving me crazy. Being a father on Father’s Day is pretty nifty.

But I’ve spent a lot more years being a son on Father’s Day than I have being a father. And that part of this particular holiday has – more often than not – been less than cool.

You may recall that my father died last December. Here’s the post I wrote the day I found out. Now, I haven’t seen or talked to my father on Father’s Day for several years, although we sent cards up until a couple years ago when they started coming back ‘address unknown’. So I’m used to not connecting with him on the holiday, but this is the first year where, as I put it in my post back in December, “the way it seemed like has become the way it is.”

Robert Bradley, Age 41 (1987)

It has been seven months since the death of Robert Bradley, and although his ashes are now resting in an urn somewhere in my Grandmother’s house in Michigan, we have still not been able to agree on a “convenient” date for our family diaspora to get together and have a memorial service for him. Seven months, and no memorial. My dad was a jackass, but really, his memory deserves better than that. And also, we deserve to have whatever measure of catharsis comes from the ritual of a memorial service. I’ve been wrangling with my aunt and grandmother for awhile over trying to schedule one, and earlier this week it got especially stressful – and we STILL have no date scheduled.

Anyhow, not really what I came here to write about. You don’t need to hear the messy stuff about scheduling a memorial.

The thing I want to share about all this is that a couple days ago my lovely wife Leah came up with the perfect idea for how I can get at least a little catharsis and some closure. Like with so many other things I’ve done in my misfit life, when the standard/typical/mainstream rituals of life don’t suit my needs, I make up my own rituals – and this is what Leah suggested we do today.

We went to get a small two-foot high resin statue. I chose a lion, because the one thing my father and I always enjoyed together in good times and bad was rooting for the Detroit Lions. The lion has been set on a pedestal in our backyard under a tree, and later I will go out there, put some notes, pictures, and a few symbolic bits of memory-fodder into the bottom of this statue, and I’ll think about my dad for awhile. And I’ll tell him that in the past few months, I’ve actually come to understand how incredibly easy it is to let depression and bitterness and stress overwhelm a person, and how someone in that situation might easily lose sight of the blessings of life and become a drunken violent bastard who cuts himself off from everyone who tries to care about him.

I will tell him that I choose not to become that person. I refuse to become that person. But yes, I will admit that I am beginning to understand how easy it would be to do so. I have danced with that temptation a couple of times recently. But I’m not going to hang out in that particular dance hall, thank you very much. I’ve got too many people who love me and too many blessings to count. I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

And because I may not get the chance to stand up in front of my family at a memorial service and say anything like what I just wrote, I choose to share it with you – anyone who is reading this and those of you who have contributed to giving me the resolve not to become what my father became. And many of you have contributed mightily, make no mistake.

Now, for the next few hours, I’m going to focus on being a great father to my boys and great husband to my wife, and we’re going to go have a fun afternoon. Later, at twilight or so, I’ll become Robert Bradley’s son again for a short while, and I’ll raise a glass to him, and to the fathers of several of my friends whose fathers have died. Then, hopefully, I’ll move on.

Thanks for being my witnesses and my friends.

See you tomorrow.